Menu

Post navigation

Twelve

Spring Break on the Upper East Side vs. Harlem with narcissistic, wealthy kids who spend all their parents money on big parties and drugsand drug dealers who will kill to make sure they get their money.

So yesterday was the second time I watched a movie called Twelve. It is named after a drug the main character “White Mike” starts to sell after his mother dies of breast cancer a year earlier. He starts out small, dealing dope to the classmates he internally despises. Keifer Sutherland narrates the film making it feel more like a book than a movie, but I was simultaneously enthralled and repelled while watching it. I’ve never done drugs besides prescription ones, and how powerful and powerless it makes people stunned me.

At the beginning of the film, “White Mike’s” cousin, Charlie is killed by Mike’s supplier, Lionel, who is played by Curtis Jackson or 50 Cent for not being able to pay for the new hip drug craze the movie gets its title from, Twelve. Lionel also blatantly kills Nana who accidentally saw what happened. Hunter who was a good friend of Charlie’s and Mike’s gets arrested for the murders because he was seen in Harlem that night.

The teenage drug abuse and partying doesn’t stop there. Jessica tries Twelve for the first time at a party and calls “White Mike” to buy more. While high, she talks to her teddy bears saying she would kill the queen B, Sara Ludlow. Sara is known for telling boys that she has tons of boyfriends, but she’s not a slut. That different boys are interesting for different reasons and that they are special for a very specific reason and then she asks them for what she really wants: money or weed. Chris, played by Rory Culkin, falls for it and gives her money as well as his house for her to have her 18th birthday party there. Chris’s older brother escaped from rehab and is angered that Chris is his mother’s favorite so he practices with his weapons while the house fills up for the party.

Meanwhile, we’ve met Molly who is a childhood friend of Michael. He blows her off as being just friends though even though she has been invited to the party he is supposed to be supplying at later on that night, Sara’s. Jessica runs out of Twelve while talking to her teddy bears and after asking her mom for money doesn’t work, she calls Lionel.

The night of the party arrives and Sara thinks it’s perfect. She kisses her boyfriend which makes Chris upset because she alluded to compensating him for the money and house, but she doesn’t. Molly goes to the party and gets drunk, but is still infuriated when “White Mike” gets there and is announced as a drug dealer. White Mike goes looking for Molly at the party after his dad calls him and tells him Charlie is Dead. Chris’s brother Claude gets angry and goes on a shooting rampage, killing Lionel, shooting Tobias, the male model who invited Molly to the party, and Sarah. He goes outside and is shot by the cops as well.

Before the killing occurs, “White Mike” finds Jessica having sex with Lionel. In order to pay for the Twelve she felt strong enough to do anything to have, she tells him she’s a virgin and that she’ll have sex with him if she gives her the $1,000 drug.

I’m not saying I’m better than any of the characters in this movie, but I would never spend my spring break like this. As Sutherland says, they were not looking for love. They were just horny and lonely.

“You have seen that before you lies a great stretch of road, and it is wind-swept. Or blasted by the hot sun. Or covered in snow. Or it is dirt. Or concrete. Or shrouded in darkness. Or bright, and clear, so you have to squint. But no matter what, it feels utterly empty. But there are sons who have lost mothers, and mothers who have lost sons. So, we must live the best life we can.”

Dually morbid, but encouraging advice to live the best life you can. Watch the movie for yourself and tell me what you think. 🙂